The Internets are buzzing with the bizarre story of BBC News reporting the 9/11 collapse of WTC7 before the building actually collapsed — all over a live shot of Ground Zero, with the 47-story highrise clearly in view and clearly standing.

What it “proves” is anyone's guess, but it sure makes for hilarious viewing. But BBC reporters and anchors who maybe didn't know the Manhattan skyline so well could possibly be forgiven for reporting an erroneous story and not knowing that great big highrise was World Trade Center 7 (otherwise known as the Salomon Brothers building). So why doesn't the BBC simply say it got a story wrong and didn't know any better? Stranger still, why did New York-based CNN anchor Aaron Brown do the same exact thing on September 11, 2001? We've got all the creepy video and much more to make your head asplode, after the jump.

First, the BBC video which has been posted and then deleted by Google and then posted and then deleted by YouTube again and again this week. The great big highrise next to the lady reporter's head is WTC7 :

This apparently aired some 20 minutes before WTC7 collapsed — supposedly from damage sustained when the Twin Towers collapsed or from the jet crashes. Whatever the “timestamp,” WTC7 is standing there throughout the news report of its collapse, so at minimum it's an inaccurate story. Such things happen. And then, presumably right before the actual WTC7 begins to collapse, the signal from New York mysteriously degrades and vanishes.

Google is quickly deleting copies of the video, although it's unknown who or what is requesting the clips be deleted. BBC presumably owns the copyright on the footage, and it seems BBC would want to collect and examine this footage — because the BBC now claims it lost all the 9/11 video. Because who would want to save video of the biggest news event of the last 40 years?

It's important that you not get upset! The BBC' s news chief explains: “We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy). So if someone has got a recording of our output, I'd love to get hold of it. We do have the tapes for our sister channel News 24, but they don't help clear up the issue one way or another.”

And now here's Aaron Brown at CNN, also getting word from some unnamed source that WTC7 has collapsed or possibly is currently collapsing. Once again, WTC7 just stands there, mocking us:

Other than being another set of examples of how dumb everybody is about everything, forever, it's also a crucial thing for people convinced that 9/11 was an “inside job.”

Why? Because they've been suspicious of the picture-perfect implosion of WTC7 (not to mention the Twin Towers themselves) and how much it resembled the carefully orchestrated and widely televised demolitions of so many Las Vegas buildings in the 1990s. Even FEMA investigators concluded that the official reason for the collapse — the building's steel infrastructure weakened by a fire started from debris that came from the Twin Towers — had a low probability of actually happening.

Here at Wonkette, we're mostly suspicious of why these five-year-old video clips were suddenly dropped on Google Video and YouTube this week. Be careful, Iran! Watch out, U.S. dollar! As for you American citizens … duck!